DOGE Isn’t Dead. Here’s What Its Operatives Are Doing Now
To a member from Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Effectiveness, the last few months have been “crazy.” In a slideshow of photos and videos posted to Instagram last month, Yat Choi, who joined DOGE this spring, posted clips of Trump administration officials dancing on the White House lawn to the sounds of “YMCA”; people boarding what appears to be a private jet; and house parties decorated with American flags and attendees wearing red, white and blue hats holding red Solo cups and cans of High Noon.
On Instagram, Choi described his work as ongoing, announcing that he was returning to the Pennsylvania underground mine, where federal pension applications are processed. “Like Jigga [Jay-Z] I showed them the plan in April, and now I’m going back to the mine to lead the pilots next week,” wrote Choi, who previously worked as an engineer at AirBnb and has referred to Canada as home in other Instagram posts. Choi did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s not just Choi. Many young and inexperienced DOGE technologists, whose identities were first reported by WIRED, appear to still be entangled with federal agencies. Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, Gavin Kliger, Marko Elez, Akash Bobba, and Ethan Shaotran all still claim to be affiliated with DOGE or the US government. The same goes for other tech workers at Silicon Valley and Musk companies like xAI and SpaceX. Coristine, Kliger, Elez, Bobba and Shaotran did not respond to requests for comment.
The DOGE philosophy, characterized by the elimination of government contracts and personnel, the consolidation of data across agencies, and the importation of private sector practices, remains in full force. While several media outlets have suggested that DOGE has all but fizzled, DOGE affiliates are scattered across the federal government and work as developers, designers, and even governing agencies in powerful roles.
“This is absolutely false,” USDA source says of DOGE breakup. “They’re actually buried in agencies like ticks.”
DOGE just transformed, an IRS employee told WIRED.
While DOGE no longer moves through government in a blitz of rapid action and disruption, DOGE affiliates appear to be establishing themselves for the long haul – and Silicon Valley-shaped fingerprints remain all over the way the agencies continue to be run.
Over the past few weeks, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has rolled out coding tests to its hundreds of technical employees, asking them about their “technical skills.” The decision to deploy these tests came from Sam Corcos, DOGE agent and Treasury chief information officer, according to a source familiar with the matter. Corcos is seeking to overhaul the IRS’s IT department, which has 8,500 people, according to the source. This is part of a larger “modernization” process underway within the U.S. Treasury.
